Challenging the two main points in a recent order issued by District Court Judge Curtis Gomez, government attorneys said Thursday that it has dealt with all pre-2006 property tax appeals and does have procedures in place to deal with how future cases should be heard.

Gomez issued his ruling Wednesday, saying that the government, in hearings held throughout the past year, has not presented enough evidence to show that the Board of Tax Review is fully in compliance with the provisions of a 2003 settlement order that prevents the government from issuing property tax bills at anything other than the 1998 assessment levels.

His main bone of contention, according to the 33-page document, centered on testimony provided during a Sept. 19, 2009 hearing in which Tax Review Board representatives said there were still appeals pending that were a decade old.

"To its credit, the government has implemented some of the familiar markers of due process, including providing notice of hearings and scheduling hearings," the judge wrote in his order. "Notwithstanding those inroads, the conditions that motivated this lawsuit have still not been completely addressed. In spite of administrative progress and more frequent hearings, taxpayers with appeals pending for 10 years still have not been provided a full hearing at which to raise their objections to the real property taxes they challenge."

Gomez said he was denying the government's motion to lift the court-ordered freeze, and would continue to monitor the operations of the board on a biannual basis.

The government challenged Gomez's order Thursday, filing a motion to reconsider that says the judge based his decision on old information.

"At the time of the hearing in October and September 2009, there were appeals for 2005 tax year and prior pending before the Board of Tax Review," the motion states. "However, the Board of Tax Review, which has been meeting regularly, subsequently decided all of the remaining appeals."

In a phone interview Friday, Finance Commissioner Angel Dawson -- who sits at the head of the Tax Review Board -- said the only appeals left pending are those from 2006, which the board has decided not to deal with until the property tax case is settled.

Dawson said since the September hearing, the government has filed reports with the court showing the status of all appeals, and he said he is "perplexed" that the judge would issue a ruling using stale data.

The government's motion backs up Dawson's remarks, saying that an updated report was filed in late December 2009 notifying the court that there were essentially no appeals pending before the board.

"Notwithstanding the new information regarding the elimination of the backlog that had been filed with the court, the court in its Feb. 17 2010 order overlooked or did not consider this recent sworn report of the Board of Tax Review," the motion says. "To the extent that the court considers the December 2009 report as new evidence that was not available at the time of the hearings in September and October, the government asks that the court reconsider its decision."

Picking through the case law Gomez referenced in support of his decision, the motion, in short states that the government has held up its end of the bargain when it comes to operations of the Tax Review Board and therefore, the conditions of the settlement agreement can be modified to allow for the collection of property taxes.

Because of the court case, property taxes have not been collected for fiscal years 2006 through 2009, which officials have said has contributed to the government's precarious financial state.

Dawson also rebutted Gomez's assertion that the board had not established a procedure for determining the order in which the backlogged appeals would be heard. When the issue came up during the September 2009 hearing, Dawson said on the stand that he was not aware that formal protocols were in place, but added that he was new to the department and board, and would be looking into improving the process.

Dawson said Friday that the board's subsequent reports show the judge's issue is moot, since all pre-2006 appeals were scheduled to be heard and settled.